Trailer released Jan 15th, will be in theaters March 11th, and we know pretty much nothing about the plot. My excitement levels are through the roof.
iAd App Network will be Discontinued →
It's been a cutthroat start to the year for Apple:
The iAd App Network will be discontinued as of June 30, 2016. Although we are no longer accepting new apps into the network, advertising campaigns may continue to run and you can still earn advertising revenue until June 30. If you’d like to continue promoting your apps through iAd until then, you can create a campaign using iAd Workbench.
I've got a new app ready to be released that has iAds in it, but now I'm going to be switching to a different ad network before release. It sucks, but I'm glad that this has been announced before I've published rather than after.
Apple Ending Ad-Supported iTunes Radio Stations at End of January →
Via Macrumors:
Apple today sent out a notice to customers who listen to its radio service letting them know the radio feature is being discontinued at the end of January.
In the email, Apple says that Beats 1 radio will be the only free listening option available to those who do not subscribe to the Apple Music service.
Makes sense I guess, but this is a bummer for me since I regularly listen to iTunes radio stations on my Apple TV. Hopefully a Spotify app for Apple TV is coming soon.
Steph Curry Signs Endorsement Deal with Brita →
"Drinking water is essential to a healthy lifestyle," Mr. Curry said in the statement. "Water is my drink. I like that Brita makes tap water taste good, so you don't need to spend money or waste plastic with bottled water."
Good on him. Steph Curry is the best basketball player on the planet right now, and I'm sure he's leaving money on the table by signing this endorsement deal with Brita instead of Coke or Pepsi. It's stupid for athletes to promote sodas anyway - I can think of few things more antithetical to being healthy and athletic than drinking that garbage.
When (not) to use guard →
guard is one of my favorite features of Swift 2. It’s one of those subtle syntactical constructs we could totally do without. And yet having it is such a delightful win. It makes our methods cleaner and easier to read, it helps express the “early exit” intention, and adds a little extra safety.
However, it’s important to learn and understand how to use guard properly. It has its place, but it’s not meant to replace if..else and if let in all cases. No matter how great guard is, it can easily be misapplied and forced into places where other constructs do a better job.
Here are some basic guidelines for when to guard, and when not to:
I'm definitely guilty of underusing guard in my Swift code. But this article has a lot of really good explanations and examples, so now I'm itchin' to do some refactorin'.
Marketing on the App Store →
In my experience, developers suck really bad at promoting the stuff that they make. We seem to have a "if I build it they will come" mentality most of the time, which isn't a great way to achieve any sort of real success with a software product. Marketing is a vital step in the process, and is worth your thought and effort.
This talk by Tim Oliver is really good, and he gives many concrete examples of how to properly market an app. Definitely check this one out.
Saying Goodbye to Mailbox →
Dropbox announced today that it will be shutting down the Mailbox email app:
Building new products is about learning as much as it’s about making. It’s also about tough choices. Over the past few months, we’ve increased our team’s focus on collaboration and simplifying the way people work together. In light of that, we’ve made the difficult decision to shut down Carousel and Mailbox.
Carousel always seemed kinda stupid to me, but Mailbox was definitely my email client of choice for a long while. They put out a really fantastic trailer long before the app was available that I must have watched a dozen times. And I can distinctly remember the slow roll out launch that they had where not everybody was able to get into the app at the same time; for about a week it seemed like everyone in the office where I worked was waiting to get in, and we would all compare our place in line and try to estimate when we'd have access.
And for a while, Mailbox was my go to app for design inspiration. Their "swipe to archive, swipe farther to delete" interaction was excellent, and I loved that the app rewarded its users for achieving Inbox Zero by showing them a different beautiful Instagram photo every day.
Today Tweetbot is my main design inspiration app, and the iPhone's (and Mac's!) Mail.app has a swipe to archive feature that is good enough I suppose. The world has moved on, but I'll always fondly remember the time that I had with Mailbox.
The 40% Rule →
Jesse Itzler, talking about having a Navy SEAL come live with him and kick his ass for a month.
He would say that when your mind is telling you you’re done, you’re really only 40 percent done. And he had a motto: If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it. And that was his way of every day forcing us to get uncomfortable to figure out what our baseline was and what our comfort level was and just turning it upside down. We all have that will. It’s just a matter of how we apply it not just to the once-a-year marathon, but to a variety of things in our daily lives.
Blood and Vision
“Legends are made from iron and sweat; mind and muscle; blood and vision.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger, How to Train for Mass
The Hateful Eight, in Glorious 70mm →
I had never heard of a roadshow before, nor did I care about what "Glorious 70mm" was before watching this video. Now I know, and I care.
While everybody seems geeked about the new Star Wars movie, this is the Christmas day release that I'm most looking forward to.